


Ichi Medikku-Gun

by DamascusMombot



Series: Thirteen Primes Multiverse [2]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Micronus!Verse, Mini!Universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2020-10-20 03:13:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20668364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DamascusMombot/pseuds/DamascusMombot
Summary: In an Alternate Universe where all Cybertronians are mini-bots and mini-cons, and Micronus Prime leads the Autobots instead of Optimus, tragedy strikes when the Decepticons gain the advantage and wipe out all Autobots left in the universe...Except for one.





	1. Tragedy Strikes, Friends Are Made

**Author's Note:**

> This idea has been bouncing around in my skull for a while now and I wanted to write it out. I figured this would be a good fic to start with now that I finally have an AO3 account. 
> 
> I had a chuckle over the thought of an AU where the bots are all minis. Especially the thought of a Mini-Ratchet. He's already one hell of a character. Picturing him tiny and constantly pissed off was highly amusing. 
> 
> Please note that the only language I know fully is English. Though I hope to learn other languages some day.

Energon spilled onto white and orange plating as Ratchet desperately repaired himself. There was no time to think about what just happened. He needed to keep himself from losing too much fuel. The grey corpse of Wheeljack laid before him, and the medic fought back his grief to focus on patching up his own fuel lines. His attempt to save his friend failed, and a part of him blamed himself for not fixing him quicker, but his conscious scolded him. If he hadn't focused on getting their escape pod out of the fray, they'd both be dead. He managed to fix the lines and reached into his subspace to pull out a cube of medical grade energon. He put the cube to his dermas...

And heard the sound of liquids pouring onto the floor. 

Immediately, he pulled the cube away and put a hand to his neck. Shit! His intake was damaged, and had a gaping hole where he had been shot in the neck earlier. He felt around the area to see if anything else was damaged, and jerked his hand away with a burst of static when his fingers were zapped by a broken wire. His eyes widened when he realized what that wire was connected to.

His vocal components. 

They must have been damaged when he got hit in the neck. His lines ran cold as he scrambled to route power away from those parts. With a sparking wire near so much spilled energon, it was what a religious mech would call a miracle that he hadn't exploded. With the parts cut off from their source of power, he reached back into his neck to scope out how bad it was. He cranked up the sensitivity in his hands and mapped out what used to be a set of fully functioning vocal components. There was still enough of it there for him to repair it if he got his hands of the right materials, but as of right now... he didn't know. 

He huffed, hooked the cube to his arm with an IV, placed it carefully in his open subspace, and got up to limp over to the pilot seat of the pod. He scanned himself for other injuries and got to work fixing himself with one hand, while typing on the console with the other. He hesitated with finger over the send button for his distress signal, and set the message aside to observe what else was happening. The screen was covered with distress signals. Dread hit him like a train and if his vocal components weren't damaged, he'd be screaming.

Everyone was dying! Message after message, call after call, they all ended with the one in distress being found and killed. Kup, Ironhide, Bumblebee, Bulkhead, Hound, First Aid, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, Red Alert, Ultra Magnus...

Drift... No! No, no, no! Ratchet's spark twisted with grief and he opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The sparkbond he'd formed with his conjunx tore as the mech on the screen, the one he'd loved, grayed up and went limp. He pounded his fist against the console and clutched at the plating over his spark, fingers digging into it and scraping it as if he was about to rip the plating off. Tears spilled down his faceplates and dripped onto the armor below. His Conjunx was killed. His Conjunx was killed! 

A new distress signal appeared on the screen. Micronus. 

Ratchet immediately answered the call.

"Ratchet!" Micronus yelled over the sounds of bombs going off. He looked at the screen to see the medic was heavily damaged. The Prime looked frantic, but Ratchet couldn't say anything and pointed at the hole in his neck to convey that through the call. 

"Listen to me very carefully, Ratchet! Get to Earth! Find the Chimera Stone! It's your only ho-" The call was cut off with another loud explosion. Ratchet grit his dentas and tried again and again to pull the call back up, but was met with nothing on the other end.

He sat there in agony for a long while. He didn't even bother to look at the chronometer. He'd lost everyone he cared about. Finally looking up at the screen again, he reached a hand out to type again, and pull up the roster of autobots still alive. 

And he was the only one left on the list.

The Decepticons have won. The Autobot army was destroyed.

Micronus' last words played through his processor on loop. He had one final mission. Get to Earth. Find the Chimera Stone. He checked the fuel on the pod and set a coarse for the planet. Luckily, or, perhaps, unluckily, the battle he escaped from happened not far from Earth's Solar System. He currently had a head start on the Decepticons, but he didn't know if they heard what Micronus had told him. Either way, Megatron most definitely knows how close they all are to Earth, and is probably planning to go either conquer it, or destroy it after their victory. 

Even though he was the last Autobot, it was his sworn duty to protect all life from Decepticon tyranny. He had no time to grieve, now. The freedom of all lifeforms hangs in the balance. And the scales have tipped in his enemies' favor. But the Chimera Stone could theoretically give him a fighting chance, albeit a slim one. Micronus hid it on Earth just in case something like this happened. Ratchet knew where it was and knew how to use it. The Prime had taught him how in case he ever died. He could take the stone and use it to protect the humans. Maybe if he got lucky, he could sneak onto a Decepticon ship and steal the parts he needs for a more powerful communicator. With that, he could contact the other allies the Autobots have acquired over the four million years they've been at war. The pod he was in didn't have the range to broadcast a distress signal that far out.

It did, however, have the range to send a signal to Earth. 

He began typing. 

______________________________________________

Azami Satou waited in the terminal of Narita Airport with bated breath as she heard the plane land. Her sister, Chieko Satou, was flying in from America to stay with her for the summer. Azami tapped her pen against the side of her journal, debating with herself if she wanted to show her sister the sketches she made. No, not now. Maybe later. She looked over the notes for the manga she was writing and sighed. She was having some writer's block and couldn't for the life of her come up with something to make this story pop. It was an isekai, but looking over her notes, she realized that it was a painfully generic story. Normal guy gets dropped into a fantasy world and becomes a knight to fight against an evil force she hadn't pieced together yet. Azami kicked herself for not being more original. 

She put the journal away and stood from the bench to stand in the crowd of people waiting for the passengers of the plane her sister was on to enter the terminal. Tourists and locals back from abroad walked through those doors, meeting and greeting with the people who were waiting for them. Lots of happy shouts and laughter as people smiled and hugged. Some even leaping into each others' arms. Azami steps closer to look for her sister, and grins when she sees her. She calls out and waves, and laughs when Chieko spots her and makes a mad dash for her, her heavy luggage swinging from side to side in the teenager's grip. The bags were dropped to the floor and Chieko practically tackled her sister. Azami wheezed and stepped back to keep herself from falling over, wrapping her arms around her sister and recovering with a giggle. Chieko was squeezing the life out of her, but she didn't care.

"AZAMIIIIIII!" Chieko wailed and grinned up at her older sister. "I missed you so much! How are you?!"

"I missed you, too! I've been doing alright. Eagle Fighters has been selling well, so I saved up some yen for us to go do some fun stuff once you get settled in. How are you? How's dad?" Azami asked.

"Dad and I have been okay. I've risen in rank in JROTC since I last called, and Dad's had some issues with some assholes on the base, but, other than that, he's okay." 

"Congratulations on the promotion!" Azami's smile faded a little when she heard about their dad having issues. "Well, you know dad. He'll handle it." She picked up one of her sister's bags and they walked out together. Chieko dug through the other bag and pulled out a pencil case, thinking for a moment, then shook her head and put the case back in. This could wait until they got to Azami's house. 

-

Now that Chieko had all her things set up to stay, she walked out to the living room. Azami stood up from the couch and smiled. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah."

Azami had planned to take her sister out to get lunch and snacks, then they'd stop by the places they used to hang out at when they were younger. She was glad that things were going smoothly. She tossed her sister her motorcycle helmet and grabbed her own, heading for the garage. The motorcycles they'd bought last summer stood in the room, one slightly more worn from riding. They started them up and rolled out onto the street, riding along the winding roads of Hinohara towards Tokyo. Their helmets were connected wirelessly and they chatted as they rode. Azami told Chieko about her plans and Chieko responded with some things she wanted to also do, which included crashing on the floor when they got back because jet-lag was a bitch. 

Partially through their conversation, Azami caught movement out of the corner of the helmet and turned her head to look. "CHIEKO, STOP!" Azami pulled a front wheel stop and turned to watch her sister roll to a stop a little farther down the road. She then looked back up at the sky. 

A meteorite came crashing down into the mountain back the way they came, shaking the ground and nearly making the sisters fall over. 

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Chieko screamed through the call. 

"Looked like a meteor. Think we should check it out?" Azami steadied her bike and turned it towards the crash site.

"Yeah, it could have broken the road! What if we can't get home?" They started riding back to the spot.

"We'll find another way home if it did."

______________________________________________

Ratchet would have cursed if his vocal components weren't broken. Fuck, that was a rough landing. There wasn't much else he could have done to make it smoother. His joints were stiff from bracing himself for the impact and he rolled them and grimaced when they popped louder than usual. He undid the latches holding himself to the seat and looked over at Wheeljack, making sure he had been secured properly. He gave a small, sad sigh of relief that his dead friend hadn't gone bouncing around the pod like a... what did the humans call it? A ping pong ball? Yeah, that. He reached up to his neck and finished repairing what he could, while watching the flickering screen for any kind of response from the American military. With a signal from the Autobots, they would assign a liaison to contact and locate him. That's what they'd done in the past. He gave a staticky grumble as his vocal components finally booted up and he looked at the coding for those parts. Great. It was all messed up. He set to fixing the coding and set up a perimeter scan for any humans and Decepticons that were in the area. 

Two blips showed up on the radar and he leaned closer to the display. Humans. Well, great. He huffed. Now he had to hide himself and the pod. He went to type a command to activate the cloaking device, but growled when it came up that it had been damaged in the crash. Okay... So he couldn't hide. Could he flee? He got up from the chair and limped toward the exit. He tried to transform, but hissed when his plating got caught on itself. Well, he needed a new altmode, anyway. It would straighten itself out when he scans something he can transform into. 

You know what? If those two humans have a motorcycle, he'll scan it. Maybe he'll even let them see him. Grief made him want to seek someone out. Even if he wasn't very good at talking about the things that bothered him, having some company was better than having no company. And really, nobody was here to yell at him for showing himself to just two humans. The American military might, but they can get over it. All of his friends were dead. He pulled up his internal map and realized he wasn't in America, but in Japan. That... complicates things. He sighed. Alright. Fine. He could work with what he has. 

He stepped out of the pod and sat on the ramp leading into it. Fuck it. He was too exhausted to play that game of hide and seek with the humans anymore. Not like it would have done him any good, anyway. He's the only Autobot left. If they didn't accept him, they'd have to deal with the Decepticons alone until he could find the Chimera Stone.

And they would have found Wheeljack, anyway. With the pod unable to cloak itself, and his own injuries, Wheeljack was caught. He wouldn't be able to drag him far enough into the forest to hide. 

He contemplated playing possum to get more sympathy from the humans. Milking his injuries, as they would say. What an odd phrase... Alright, time for some emotional manipulation. He eased himself to the ground and laid there like he'd collapsed from his injuries, shutting off his optics and cycling his engine down. It sputtered a little and he made a brief mental note to look at it more later, just as the motorcycles rode onto the scene. 

The two sisters rolled to a stop and stared wide-eyed at the pod. That was no meteor. Azami held a hand up to tell her sister to wait there and slowly got off her bike. She inched up to the crater and looked in. There was... something on the ground next to it, but she couldn't tell exactly what it was at this distance. "Wait here." She slid down the side of the crater, ignoring Chieko's protests, and slowly made her way up to the thing on the ground. She looked it over, and noticed it had a vaguely human-looking shape, then looked closer at the end of one of the limbs. 

A robotic hand.

Her eyes widened and traveled up the arm to the face. The scarred, scratched up face. This robot... It looked like it had been crying... There was a glowing pink liquid on its plating and face, and some of it had been washed away by its... tears? Did robots have tears? She looked over the rest of the scratched, dented, and torn metal as it finally dawned on her what this thing was. Or what she understood it to be. This robot was in that... spaceship. An actual spaceship. Not like the ones she knew existed from research for writing. That spaceship was definitely alien. So the robot was an alien robot. Aliens are real. Okay... An alien robot that can cry. So maybe he's sentient? Wait, he? Why did she think he? Maybe because the facial structure looks masculine. As an artist, she knew the differences between masculine and feminine faces well. 

Wait. Aliens are REAL. ALIENS ARE REAL. She swallowed in newfound fear. She looked him over more to see if he had any weapons on him, and noticed the medical markings on his frame. They were torn and spattered with that pink liquid, but they were recognizable enough. And around the markings were some glyphs. Letters that clearly weren't human in origin, but under them, there was surprisingly some English. English was her second language. She'd learned it when her family had moved to America. She leaned in closer to read it. 

[Autobot Medic]

She found another bit of English on another piece of metal.

[To Protect All Life From Decepticon Tyranny]

Decepticon Tyranny? Okay, he was an alien medical robot made to protect all life from this 'Decepticon Tyranny', which did sound pretty bad. While she was still in a little shock over discovering the existence of aliens, she was relieved that this alien seemed to be one that wouldn't hurt her. It was weird still that there was an Earth language written on this alien robot, but if he meant no harm to humans, it would be reasonable to want to convey that in the most widely-spoken language on this planet. She knew though that it might be a trick, but ultimately, she decided to take a risk.

She kneeled down and placed a hand on his... chest? ...and lightly shook him. "Hello? A-Are you...? Are you okay?" She spoke in Japanese first. IF this robot was here to help humans, then it would probably know more than one language from Earth.

Ratchet's engine whirred to 'life' as he toggled his tcog to fake some sounds of him booting up, and after a few seconds of doing that, he opened and onlined his optics. Hearing the Japanese, his vocal components glitched and locked onto that language, registering it as his spoken language in its settings. Though he didn't notice, as he'd already decided on answering in Japanese. "I-I'm injured. Who are you? Where am I?"

Injured? Not damaged? The choice of words made her hesitate. So he WAS sentient? "I'm Satou Azami. You're on Earth, in Hinohara, near Tokyo, Japan. Who are you?"

Who? Not what? Smart human. Must have figured at least some things out by looking at him and the pod. Might as well come clean. "I'm Ratchet. Autobot Medic. I need some help, if you'd be willing to help me."

"Yeah, looks like you do." Azami tried to keep her voice steady. How was she going to explain this to Chieko? "What... What is your objective?"

"To protect all life from Decepticon tyranny." He'd had that line practically burned into his processor when he became an Autobot. And painted onto his plating. He wasn't bothered by it because he knew it was true.

"So you're not going to harm me?" Azami pressed.

"Well, not unless you harm me first. Since you haven't done anything to make yourself threatening, I see no reason to." Ratchet said. "If you tried to kill me, then that would be a different story."

"A-Alright. Glad to be clear on that." She gave a sigh of relief. "Can you stand?"

"I... think so." Ratchet slowly sat up, then reached and grabbed the side of the ramp to pull himself to his feet. 

"Azami. Are you... Are you sure about this?" Azami flinched in surprise. Chieko had heard her talking through the call. Ratchet turned his head to look at her questioningly. "My sister, Chieko."

"Hello, Chieko." Ratchet said loud enough for the helmet's microphone to pick up. He gave a snarky smirk. "I come in peace."


	2. Aliens Are Real. So Much For Science FICTION.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Are you ready to cry?

The rest of the day went by like a surreal blur. Ratchet gave the girls another shock when he scanned one of their bikes and transformed right before their eyes. So Chieko offered to ride on Ratchet's motorcycle mode and leave her bike with the crash a little into the woods so nobody would see it. They managed to get back home, get their family's work truck, drive back to the crash site, load up the ship on the trailer, and get it back to their house without anyone seeing Ratchet or the ship. The three had draped a tarp over the pod and tied it down to the trailer with straps, then loaded Chieko's bike next to it and tied it down, as well. Azami drove the truck as Chieko and Ratchet rode behind them. Azami put an earpiece in to connect with Chieko's helmet and they talked as they drove. 

"So, you're an alien. From outer space." Chieko said, looking down at the motorcycle she was riding on.

"Yes. I am a robotic life form from the planet Cybertron. Well. if I were to be technical about what exactly my species is, we're energy-based life forms piloting bipedal life support machines. This frame I'm in is just that. A frame. Without my spark, it's an empty husk. My species can change frames if there's an empty frame or a protoform available, but there's rarely any need to do that." Ratchet explained. 

"So your... spark. Is it like a soul?" Chieko asked.

"I've heard your species use that term before. Yes. My spark is the very culmination of my being. It's my identity, personality, memories, base instincts. Everything that is me resides in my spark." 

"So you're completely sentient." Azami mumbled. She froze up. Could he hear her? Could he connect to their headsets? She waited to see if he would respond. When he didn't respond to her, she let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Instead, Chieko and Ratchet continued to talk to each other.

"You say that you've heard my species use the term soul before. So you've been around humans, before?" 

"Yes. Humans and Cybertronians have been interacting for decades on this planet. Autobots are allies to humanity as a whole in the war against the Decepticons. I'll give you that history lesson later, when we arrive at your destination. Right now, we should focus on not getting caught. Humanity as a whole would panic if they learned of the existence of alien life." 

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Chieko sounded a little disappointed over the call and Azami smirked. Her sister always was the curious type. "Tell him we're almost there."

"We're almost there. When we get there, we can hide your ship in the barn. We don't have any animals, though. It came with the property." 

"Alright. Do you have any tools or scrap metal?" 

"Uh... Hey, sis. Did you get rid of the old truck yet?"

"No, it's still there." 

"We still have an old truck with a toolbox in the back. It's full of stuff you can use."

"Thank you."  
\-----

Once they arrived and left the trailer in the barn, the sisters invited Ratchet into their house. At first, Chieko was a little nervous about it, but Azami told her it was fine. As the robot walked into her house, she wondered just what all she was really inviting into her house, and, subsequently, into her life. Her imagination ran wild as she thought of the possibilities. She didn't even realize she was reaching for her sketchbook until it was already open and she had a pencil in her hand. She mentally slapped herself and she shut the sketchbook and laid it back on the table. "So... uhhh... Would you like a glass of water?"

"I don't consume water, nor organic food."

"Oh. Wh-What do you consume?"

"Energon. And don't worry. I know you don't know what that is. I can handle getting fuel just fine." He slowly sat down on the floor and scanned himself for injuries. Good. He hadn't gotten any more while driving. He still needed to finish repairing himself, though, and set to work. As he worked, he pulled out another energon cube and took a sip of the fuel before setting it down next to him to weld a patch over a torn piece of armor. "Er. Thank you for the offer, anyway. And for helping me, in general." 

"No problem! It's not every day an alien crash lands on this planet." Azami giggled nervously as she walked into the kitchen to get herself a drink. When she came back, she sat on the couch. 

"It happens more often than you think. You might be nervous around me for being an alien, but really, I'm not the one you should worry about."

"Who should I be worried about?"

"Megatron. Or any Decepticon, really." Ratchet sighed. "When your sister comes back, I'll tell you both about what's happened."

It was about ten minutes before Chieko had gotten her bike off the trailer and back into the garage. Once she walked in, Ratchet had finished up a couple of the more important repairs and his posture had improved because of it. Chieko sat next to her sister and watched him work, feeling a little nervous about this alien sitting in her sister's living room. She flinched when he looked up and saw her there.

"Okay, now that you're both here, I came from a planet called Cybertron. I was made during the Golden Age of this planet, and my status as a forged medic made the functionist society I lived in automatically put me in the upper class. I was being trained to be the personal doctor for members of the Iaconian Senate, that's how high up in this society I was. But I soon realized that this society wasn't perfect. Far from it, actually. Mechs were homeless, addicted to drugs, swept up into gangs, and were dying in the streets. So I opened a clinic in one of the most dangerous places on the planet and did what I could to help. I met tons of people who needed help, but weren't getting it from society normally. I've cleaned some people up and helped them make their lives better, and I've failed to help others. Some just wanted a patch up and some drugs. They didn't want to be helped farther than that. But I always offered. That's were I first met Drift. He was a mech who another friend of mine, Micronus, brought into my clinic because of a drug overdose. I saved his life, gave him some advise and sent him on his way. After I did that, I noticed that nobody was starting any problems around my clinic anymore. Nobody was breaking in and stealing things anymore. I learned a couple million years later that he had started to protect me by keeping watch around the area."

"While I was there, I learned about the Decepticons. Mechs who seemed to be fighting against the corrupt government our planet had. Their leader, Megatron, was a former slave and miner who rebelled against his handlers and became the champion of the gladiatorial pits of Kaon. I met him through Micronus, as well. Micronus wanted to change the world for the better, and was gravitated towards Megatron because of his similar want for change. But they disagreed on just how to go about changing the planet. Micronus wanted to take a more peaceful route, and change the government through legislation. But Megatron wanted to go to war and wipe out anyone he considered an oppressor. Because of my reputation on Dead End, he tried to recruit me into the Decepticons, and I told him I needed time to think about such a decision. Really, my true answer was no, but I felt it was wise to not fully reject him to his face because I feared what might happen if I did."

"I ended up being right not to trust the Decepticons, because not long after I met with Megatron, he and his Decepticons attacked, and wiped out the Senate. They destroyed Iacon in their attack and killed thousands of innocent civilians. During the battle, Sentinel Prime was killed by Megatron, and the Matrix of Leadership was given to Micronus. He became Micronus Prime, and created a separate faction, the Autobots, to fight the Decepticons in a civil war that lasted four million years. A brutal civil war that destroyed our planet and many, many others. A civil war that came close to destroying your planet, but we were always able to protect the Earth and its people. That was... until a few days ago."

Ratchet's voice cracked in the last sentence and he stopped himself. He realized that he had started crying again. But he had to keep going. They had a right to know what was going to happen.

"There was a massive battle not far from your solar system. And..." He felt his vocalizer tighten up. "The Decepticons won... They won and they completely wiped out the Autobot army. All of my friends... All of my coworkers... All of my patients... Everyone I loved and cared for... They're all dead. I'm the only one left that's still alive. Because I didn't send out a distress signal to anyone else in the army. Our communications were compromised and anyone who sent out a signal was surrounded by the Decepticons and killed. Even... Even Drift..." His vents hitched and a hand came up to his chassis. His spark ached at the very mention of his conjunx's name. "Drift had originally changed his name to Deadlock and became a Decepticon for the first half of the war, but he changed, became the great mech I knew he could become, and switched sides to become an Autobot. After that... He and I fell in love and we privately went through the rite of Conjunx Endura. What you humans would call marriage." 

The girls seemed shocked as they listened to him quietly and attentively. Their eyes widened even more at the mention of the word marriage. He gave a sad laugh at that, as he was still surprised that Drift loved him as much as he did, and he continued. "I answered his distress call and now he's dead. I watched them kill the love of my life and there was nothing I could do to stop them. I couldn't even scream. My vocalizer was damaged. He's dead. My conjunx is dead, and I killed him..." Optic cleanser flowed down his face uncontrollably, now, and he broke down. Grief struck him like a hammer to the chassis and he curled into a ball, hugged his knees to his chassis, and started sobbing.

Chieko froze with her mouth hanging open in shock at the raw emotion coming from this robot as he told his story. He was crying. He really was crying. She didn't know what to do.

Azami saw him curl up and start sobbing and immediately stood up and ran out of the room. She soon came back with her biggest comforter blanket and several pillows and started wrapping the sobbing medic in the blanket. She couldn't make him tea or hot chocolate, but she scooped up the energon cube and gave it back to him once she finished wrapping him in the blanket and laying the pillows around him. The surprised look in his big, blue eyes broke her heart even more. War wasn't pretty. And going through four million years of it would have been awful. On top of losing all his friends and loved ones at the bitter end. It's probably been a long time since anyone tried to care for him. She sat next to him and wrapped her arms around him in the warmest hug she could give. Chieko soon sat on his other side and hugged him from there as well. 

Ratchet was overwhelmed by the affection and care he was receiving and he cried even harder. The heavy reality of what happened to him was setting in. "I-I'm the only one left." 

"I'm the only one left, and the Decepticons are coming."


	3. Let The Old Mech Rest...

It had taken a bit for Ratchet to calm down after telling the girls his story. Thinking about each and every one of his friends who were now dead, floating in the black void of space among the wreckage of the battlefield, had gotten him worked up again and again until he ended up emotionally burned out. Now, he had to focus on his new objective. Find the Chimera Stone, and protect the Earth from the Decepticons. He sniffled as he cleaned the dried energon off of himself. The Americans were going to respond soon enough, and he needed to be in his pod next to the communicator to catch it. He dragged the cleaning rag over his forearm as he stepped up onto the trailer, pulled the tarp up, and squeezed through the pod's door. Wheeljack was still sitting there, and seeing him, he felt another pang of grief and he stared at his dead friend. As much as he wanted to give his friend a proper, respectful burial, he needed the parts in case he himself ended up too damaged. He hated it, but he also needed to survive. And Wheeljack had told him in the past that he wanted to become a parts donor. Ratchet just didn't anticipate that it would be he himself who'd potentially need those parts. He booted up the console and turned and swiped the rag over the corpse of his friend. Even if he couldn't bury him, he could still clean him up.

He remembered all the shenanigans Wheeljack would happily throw himself into. The wacky inventions he'd create for the most random functions. And the many... _many_ explosions. He remembered the times the engineer roped him in on these schemes and how he'd always yell at the other bot for being so risky. 

Oh, how he missed it.

What would Wheeljack say if he was still alive? He'd probably try to comfort Ratchet while crying, himself. He'd immediately jump on trying to get the Chimera Stone even though it's on a completely different continent, and get the bright idea to build a ground bridge out here, in the middle of nowhere, with no power source. Obviously, Ratchet would bring that up, and Wheeljack would somehow pull the materials needed to create a power source out of his aft. That mech was full of surprises. 

The medic sniffled again as he turned his attention back to the console. He'd sent the message while entering the Earth's atmosphere, so if the Decepticons had intercepted the message, it would have been too late for them to stop him from landing on the planet. He wanted to keep radio silence after all of his friends died because he knew that they were being tracked because of it. The only reasons why he wasn't tracked down and killed like the rest of them was that he was outside the war zone and he'd used the pod's communication device, not his own. He was a high enough profile mech that the Decepticons would have gone after him if he'd used his own comms, but since the comms he'd used were the pod's, his name didn't show up when the signal was scanned. 

Dodged a bullet. Unfortunately, he seemed to be the only one lucky enough to. But... maybe he wasn't the only one left. A couple of the smarter bots could have faked their deaths to get away. That would explain why he was the only one left on the roster. He knew a few bots who were capable of doing that, leaving a fake body, taking themselves off the roster, and bolting. The Wreckers specifically came to mind. Springer, Arcee, and Perceptor would definitely do that if given the chance. So _maybe_ there was some hope left, or maybe he really was the only one left and that was just wishful thinking. He really hoped the former was the case.

He could most definitely do that, too. Build a fake body, drench it in his own energon, put a blaster in its hand and make it look like a suicide. If he gets really desperate, that's what he'll do. If Earth is a lost cause, there's still plenty of places in this galaxy and the ones surrounding it for him to hide and live out the rest of his life in retirement, as much as he absolutely hated the idea of retirement... As long as he didn't end up captured or killed by the Decepticons. If they captured him, Megatron would never let him go. He just couldn't live as a slave. If the Decepticons got their hands on him, he'd kill himself to spare himself the eternal suffering.

The console beeping pulled him out of his dazed disassociation and he read the message on the screen. The Americans were aware he was on the planet, but they needed his coordinates. He thought about it for a bit, and typed out coordinates for a remote spot in the woods nearby. He didn't want Azami and Chieko to be swept up in his business with the American Military. They sent an acknowledgement message stating they'd be sending some agents to Japan to come get him. He sent a simple "10-4", and once the message went through, Ratchet unbuckled Wheeljack and carried him out of the pod. As he stepped down from the trailer, Azami walked up from the house. 

"Are you going to be okay?" She asked.

"Yeah." Ratchet sighed. "Wheeljack was a good friend of mine, long before the war even started. I miss him. He was a mad scientist who's wacky experiments would often explode in his face. Even though he made me worry about his safety, he was fun to be around." He looked down at the mech in his arms, feeling another pang of grief. The many memories they shared played in his mind and he held the mech tighter.

He flinched when he felt a small, warm hand on his shoulder pauldron and he looked up to see Azami giving him a sad, understanding smile. "I once had a friend who was a stuntman for movies in America. A couple years ago, one of his stunts went wrong and he died in the crash. He's the one who taught me how to ride motorcycles and how to pull off a lot of the tricks." She gave a sad laugh. "I could have you doing back-flips and mid-air spins if I had the right terrain. All thanks to him."

He quirked an eye-ridge at her mention of motorcycle stunts and made a mental note of it. He wasn't that acrobatic. Not nearly as much as his conjunx. He used to watch in awe as Drift flew through the air with a grace achieved through thousands of years of training. It always made him worry that Drift might land a jump wrong and crash. Drift had found his concern 'cute and wholesome', as the samurai had put it. It used to make him grumpy when Drift used those kinds of words, but, looking back, he missed it. At least Drift hadn't suffered for long. It tore at his spark to think about it, but he took solace in the fact that his death was a quick one. He's had plenty of patients who'd managed to escape the Decepticons after being tortured. He couldn't bare to think about if Drift had been treated the same way. 

Drift was a diamond in the rough. He didn't deserve to go through what he'd gone through, though he'd become a stronger person because of the suffering he'd been through as Drift, the junkie living in the crummy ghettos down on Dead End, and the suffering he'd caused as Deadlock, the ruthless Decepticon assassin. Ratchet never gave up on him, believing that he could become a better person. He had been disappointed when he met Deadlock, but after, when Drift reformed and repented, he had been so proud. And Drift had never forgotten the day Ratchet had saved his life before the war. When Drift became an Autobot, he sought out Ratchet and thanked him by means of acting obsessively protective over him. Ratchet chuckled quietly as he remembered getting in Drift's face, yelling at him to back off, and making a point to defeat a Decepticon twice his size and strength to prove to Drift that he could take care of himself. After that, Drift only got protective when Ratchet _absolutely __needed _him to. Then, it turned into a bit of a competition of one mech defending and saving the other from certain doom. Almost like a game. They even got snide and started keeping a tally. ...Ratchet won that game... Not by much, but still... 

It hadn't been long before that back and forth ended up in the both of them throwing themselves at each other. He blushed a little when he thought about it. It still mystified him as to just what Drift found so attractive about him. He was just a rusty, clunky old medic. He didn't deserve the praise Drift gave him.

Ratchet sighed as he carried Wheeljack into the woods towards the coordinates he'd sent to the humans. They'd be here in a few hours. He needed to get everything remotely cybertronian over there. "I'm meeting your American Military in those woods. Do you think you could bring the truck and the pod?"

Azami nodded and ran to the truck. The engine fired up and the truck rolled behind the mech. Azami leaned out the window. "Hey, you want to ride on the trailer? It'll make this quicker." 

Ratchet nodded and waited for the truck to pass before hopping onto the back of the trailer. He gravitized to it and walked up to the front of it as the truck picked up some speed. They rode down a grassy dirt road to a lake and the truck's breaks squeaked as it rolled to a stop along the lake shore. Ratchet set his friend down on the trailer and sat down next to the corpse. Azami shut the truck off and stepped out. 

"Doesn't that bother you?" She asked.

"What?" He replied.

"You're sitting next to a corpse."

"Oh, not anymore. When you've carried millions of wounded soldiers over horizons of corpses, you get used to it." He almost felt bad for saying that so casually, but that was his life up until this point. He just sighed and watched the water lap at the dirt and rocks in front of him. "Besides, Wheeljack would have enjoyed this. ...Then he would have made some comment about me needing to relax more and invented some wacky machine to scoop the fish out of the water so he could examine them." He cast a glance over at the grayed mech. Frag, did he miss him. 

"It'll be a couple hours before the other humans come and get me... I'm going to take a nap. If I spring a leak, wake me up." Ratchet huffed and leaned back against the pod, closing his optics and crossing his arms across his chassis. Before long, he started snoring.

Azami blinked at him. Well, he did have a wild day. She should leave and let him rest. She walked back to the road, took a look back at him, the corpse of his longtime friend, the pod they crashed in on, and the truck and trailer that had towed it all here. She decided to go home and get some supplies together. He wasn't going with the Americans alone. 

She trudged back up the road, watching the trees slowly go by and relaxing at the sight of the sun shining through the leaves. This was only the beginning. 

After twenty minutes, she arrived back home and went in. "Chieko, Ratchet's contacted the Americans, and they're sending someone to get him. Do you want to come with?"

"I just got here to Japan, but if you're going, I'm coming with you. ...Hey, we might meet Dad."

"I dunno. I don't think he's got the jurisdiction to get involved with extraterrestrial life forms and affairs like this." 

"Well, to be fair, neither do we."

"Yeah, but if we're with Ratchet, they might not separate us from him. I'd rather stick with him. He needs friends right now. He's sitting at the lake next to the corpse of his old friend. I'd say that's a call for some serious therapy, but the best I can do for him is be supportive."

"Oh god, that's sad."

"Yeah. He really needs friends."

"I wasn't very sure about him, and to be honest I still don't fully trust him, but if you're going with him, I'm coming with you. Need to protect you if he really is untrustworthy."

Azami sighed. "Yeah, but if things are the way he says they are, he's not the only robot you need to be concerned about." She walked through the house, grabbing food and supplies. "Grab the kitchen knives. Even if they're useless as weapons against the robots, they'll be useful as tools." 

"You are so going to be shaken down by the Army."

"I don't care."

Chieko stood from the couch and went to get the knives. "OH!" She came out with the knives and set them on the table. "I completely forgot!" She grabbed her bag off the couch and fished through it. She pulled the pencil case out and held it out for her sister to take. "I bought this. I figured you might need another, since you have a tendency to grab pens and markers at random when shopping." 

Azami took it with a smile. "Thank you. I wanted to show you something, too." When she put the pencil case in the bag, she pulled out her notebook and opened it. Inside was concept art for a new character for Eagle Fighters. "I've got spooooiiiiileeeeerrrrssss~!" She grinned as she showed it to her sister.

"YO! I love her design! She's so cool!" Chieko squealed as she turned the pages and saw more and more of the artwork. "Dude, your next chapter is going to be awesome!"

"Yeah. And I think I may have found some inspiration for another project of mine..."

**Author's Note:**

> Not a bad start. I'm eager to see where this goes.


End file.
